NCAA finally waves white flag on NIL

That reads like an Onion parody of a conservative columnist.

 

He’s a Paterno defender.

Funny how conservatives are in favour of restricting the free market when minorities may benefit and it might ruin their enetertainment options.

 

Also apparently not a reader of the recent SCOTUS decision.

 

I have no problem with players profiting from their name, image and likeness. And I disagree with the bulk of his column.
One part -- and only one part -- of his argument is true.
The next defect in the liberal view of this topic is the idea that it is the players themselves who are really generating the millions of dollars which major college football and basketball programs, and their often overpaid coaches, “unfairly” reap. The easiest way to prove this to be patently untrue is to imagine what would happen if the top college players decided to start their own minor professional league. It is a 100% certainty that such an endeavor would be a financial disaster, while the amount of money generated by college athletics would surely be un-impacted by such a development, even if the level of play on the field was less spectacular.

It looks like the G League's elite prospects team is indeed getting talent. But did anybody watch them play this past season? Do you plan to do so this coming season?
Overtime Elite has A-list investors but is running out of time to sign a total of 30 allegedly elite players by its alleged start date of this September. They have eight. Two of them are brothers who just finished their sophomore year of high school and got $1 million each. Neither is in ESPN's top 60 for their national class. Unless I'm missing something, the highest rated player in their stable is No. 54.
And then there is the Professional Collegiate League, which has announced a TV distribution deal but doesn't seem to have any players. It claims three teams, one of which actually has a coach.
At one point, it said it would start in 2019. Then 2020. Then the Trumpandemic hit. So 2021 it was.
Now they're not committing to a timetable. (Yet reputable journalists seem eager to fall for the storyline.)

 

Except that his argument is a bullshit straw man. No one is arguing what he is claiming.

The two sides need each other. You put random college kids on these teams instead of the athletes and that won't generate the money, either.

"People are watching you because you are representing a university, and therefore your labor should be unpaid" is a preposterous argument.

 

Totally agree with you. The author's argument's going straight to the devil. (#LouReed)
Only thing on which I agree with the author, a COVID denialist, is that there is no market for start-up leagues.

 

Tap, are you building a Strawman?

 

In the 80's Oklahoma and Georgia went to court to break up the NCAA college football market, arguing that college football on television is a business. As a result college athletic departments have gone directly into the business of television production with entities such as the SEC Network, the Longhorn Network, etc.
The University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia have extremely valuable businesses in their athletic department with millions in brand equity.

As do teams in, for example, the NFL (that is why franchises sell for billions of dollars). No one argues that NFL players should paly for free. Why should NCAA players play for free.

 

I have read comments that NIL will lead to locker room problems because of jealousy over the different levels of compensation players receive.

NCAA football ahs 85 scholarships which means that there enough scholarships for the entire depth chart. NCAA Baseball is limited to 11.7 scholarships. Which is not enough scholarships for the starters and the pitching rotation. I have known a couple college baseball players and the way the process has been described to me is that each season the athletes are playing for scholarship money. At year end the coaches would divvy up the scholarships for the next year.

So I had one friend who was the fourth outfielder at an exceedingly expensive private school. He received a partial scholarship but if he had dropped to the fifth outfielder there would have been no scholarship money. If he had been able to work his way into the starting line-up he would have received more aid. So college athlete were literally competing with teammates for financial assistance. Locker rooms survived.

 

I’m not saying they should play for free. I agree that players should be able to earn money based off their athletic feats and affiliations.
Again: My only point of agreement with this wretched Trumpist is that I see no market for viewership of glorified exhibition games between teams with no league or individual brand.

 

And it’s that way in almost every other sport. Somehow, it works.

 

I know this sounds cynical, but in the future, schools will cut sports not just for the (nominal) savings but because they want to thin the herd of athletes whose deals they have to review and whose parents are griping that the school is not doing enough to facilitate Timmy Tennis’ NIL opportunities.